Have The Relationship You Want

Here’s an issue I hear about all the time, and it’s very, very challenging, so let’s go into it.

“Rori, This is a tough one for me because I make more than twice as much money than my boyfriend. Yes, I said boyfriend. He practically begged me to be his girlfriend about a year ago and I finally said yes. Now, he works too much and spends less time with me so I’m thinking about trying circular dating. I let him take me out on a nice date occasionally where he pays. I know it makes him feel good and I try not to feel bad about it.

The bigger issue is that I wonder how we will ever integrate our lives. I’m not sure I want to be married again. I have a young daughter so I have to consider her. I also have a nice house. He lives in a very small, not so nice apartment. My mortgage is 5 times his rent. Plus his utilities are included in his rent.

I often buy groceries and we make meals together. He buys a few from time to time but I keep my kitchen pretty well stocked so most of it comes from my pocket.

Is this okay? If we ever got married will he ever be able to feel like he can provide for me? More…

I love posting “extreme” situations – where the pressure and pain and frustration and fear and anger are incredibly intense because of the circumstances. If I can help a woman in this place to pull herself out, turn things around, feel better and get some really good and happy results in her life – then it makes us all feel hopeful for our own situations.

Here’s a letter from Alice, who’s in a profoundly painful place:

“Hi Rori,

I am writing to ask you how to deal with a man who suddenly changed and turned away from me and now throws false accusations against me.

I am pregnant and when we found out, he was ok or seemed ok with it. He accepted it, cared and supported me during my first few months. When I inquired about getting married, he said that its not a good reason for getting married and that I dont have anything to worry since he will be there and can be relied upon. Last December, I went for a holiday to visit my parents for a month. He even brought me the airport. I thought everything was okay. During the last few weeks of my vacation, I could not contact him nor could I receive text messages in spite of my repeated texts.

I came home this January and I was shocked to find a woman in his house.  More…

This is a guest post from Kathryn Tull (I put it together from 2 of her blog posts). If you’re getting my Interview With Relationship Experts Series, you’ve just heard Kathryn, and know what a powerful help she and her work is.  I wanted you to know she has a free teleclass coming up called “Safe and Sane” – which will help you catch the Red Flags of a man, get past your instincts to be attracted to an abuser, or a man who simply is not going to be dedicated to making you happy.  You can get her free newsletters, her free “Stress Tips,” watch her videos, and sign up for the teleclass at her website – NextBoldStep.com:

I hope many of you were tuned in to 20/20  on ABC to watch and listen to Rihanna finally speak out honestly about her event of intimate partner violence from world famous Chris Brown.

I experienced several intense emotions as I watched her interview with Diane Sawyer.

I was sickened, as I always am, when I hear the details of what happens to our sisters of all ages at the hands of abusive partners, details so familiar to me from my own past.

I was thrilled for a celebrity of her world magnitude to tell the  ugly truth with a world audience in attendance.

I was angry and frustrated that without her celebrity status, she would be unheard,  “just another victim,” like the rest of us who have also been victims, but whose experiences have not deemed newsworthy. Her trauma would go unnoticed, unattended by public compassion and awareness, still isolated in her trauma, pain and shame.

Please watch this online if you did not see it last night. If you have been – or are currently – a victim of abuse, you may find it comforting and encouraging that someone who can get into the world headlines has spoken out at this level.  If you are not a victim, you will hear truthful information about what abuse looks like, and how it can seem to sneak up out of nowhere.

We all deserve to be safe and sane in our relationships!

I’ve had to seriously rebuild my life over the past few years.

People say to me all the time, ” Wow! Look at all you’ve accomplished!”

I don’t see it as you might, because you are looking from the outside. I know how steep the climb has been, and still is at times. The road can seem long. Sometimes, the next step feels like the biggest challenge yet.

Each day I commit to see an opportunity to move forward. Yesterday was great, and I want today to be, also. What I have learned is that it is up to me.

The truth is, that not every day for every person is great. Right now  I am hearing people saying things like, “these are unsettling times, the world is going crazy.”  “Things are out of control.”

Even if you are not saying it out loud, you may find yourself thinking things like this privately.

I want to let you know one thing for sure: you are not alone. Many people are experiencing mounting anxiety, or frustration, or other troubling feelings.

When it feels like things aren’t going well in one area of your life, it  affects other areas of your life. You may try to compartmentalize, but things leak. Thoughts and feelings seep over in some pretty sneaky ways.You may not see the correlation, but that’s the way it works in us humans.

The Good news is: you don’t need magic to fix this. You need you. YOU are your most important tool for a better mood and brighter possibility. Your job, your business, your relationship can feel like a dark cloud, when thoughts and feelings work against you instead of for you.

It’s time for things to get better. Try this as a quick free fix: listen to  one of your favorite upbeat songs. More than one is even better. So basic, right? It is, and it works. The beat of the music will get your heart rate up, which will release neurochemicals into your system. These will immediately support your better frame of mind. I find that I always smile when I hear one of my favorite songs; this immediately shifts your mood!  I usually end up moving around to it, too, even if I am in the car and I am tapping in rhythm on the steering wheel.

Try it, and see how it works for you. Write to me directly and tell me what’s on your mind. I want to speak to what is important to you. You can find me at http://www.nextboldstep.com.  Join me there, and I’ll send you more tips on instant stress busters.

Have a great week. Let me hear from you!

To your forward motion,

Kathryn

From Rori – be sure to let me know if actual physical and verbal abuse is your issue…almost all of us tend to automatically steer ourselves NOT toward what’s good and happy for us, but toward what will HURT us.  Most of the time it’s in small ways. We’re looking to somehow balance out our good times with our guilt, and the nasty voices in our heads with our dreams.  Kathryn takes all this a step further, and it’s very very helpful to see ourselves in the most extreme versions of where we’re leading ourselves.  It really helps us see what’s actually going on for ourselves, and can move us much faster along. I want to see you walking  purposefully down your Bridge to your Happy Ever After! Love, Rori

Here’s a question from Alice – very unique, and yet I know many of you are dealing with it, or know more about it than I. Please help out if you can…

“Dear Rori, I have listened to your work and read items on your website and what you say seems to make some sense to me but I am stuck.

My situation is that I have been in a “relationship” with a work colleague for nearly 10 months now. We started as friends. I then got the courage to tell him I was attracted to him. I left it for him to decide where he took that information from there. He decided that he wanted to pursue it further and we have enjoyed amazing physical and emotional connection – of which he will openly acknowledge that connection also.

The issue is that our relationship is “secret” – because we work together and secondly because he comes from an asian background – and I dont. His mother (who I believe became aware that he was seeing someone in the first month) has since moved in with him and is now taking all his time and attention. He told me at the start that he had an ex-girlfriend who he was still friends with as his and her parents did not know they had split.

There was an expectation that they would marry. After many discussions he told me he would speak to his mother so we could be “out in the open”. He did do this but his mother’s response was that he had to “work things out” with his ex-girlfriend who she wants him to marry to “save face” so people can benefit.

I can see that he is torn between his “duty” to his family and his desire to be in a open and loving relationship with me. He swears to me that they have not been physical or intimate for many years now and that before me they both saw other people but the ex-girlfriend (who he says he does not love anymore) is still apart of his life because of his mum, and demands him to put on a front for special occasions that they are together – and he does this (not nearly as often now that I am aware of as it was in the start). I know he has gone to his best friend for advice (as he is not asian) but from what he says he was of little help.

I feel now because of all the pressure that he is receiving at home he is withdrawing from me because he says he “has so much to deal with, pressure going on at home” that he struggles to find time for me – this in turn makes me feel that he doesn’t want to spend time with me, that I am not important to him – but he says seeing me involves thinking of ways to get away from his mother and he feels guilty for lying and doing this. I know it is a mutual attraction, he says he has been physically attracted to me for 18 months (now 2 1/2 years) before we hooked up.

We did not sleep together until six months into seeing each other despite doing all we could to resist and now the sexual attraction from both sides is intense chemistry and passion.

I am unsure of how I assist us in having a future together, I love him, I have told him this, he knows I am committed to him, he constantly asks when we are alone “what are we going to do”. I am stuck on showing him how to have the courage to do what “he wants” and not what is his perceived responsibility to his family. I am even unsure whether I should be helping him with this.

To stop the pain I am feeling I gave him a deadline of Christmas to make a decision on telling his mum/making moves and plans to put this into action or letting me go – He struggles with having this deadline, he says he knows is the right thing but still is not happy with it. I see with this – I am now lost at what I should be doing. I don’t want to push him, loose him or be impatient but this is tearing me up. Alice”

And here’s my answer:

Alice, I work with many women who are stuck in this exact situation. They are more progressive, but their families still think in the way they were brought up, or the way they still live – in different countries, different cultures, different religions that have strict social rules of conduct and duty, and the good men they’re with are all torn up by their duty to family and ex wives and even simply women friends who are also friends of the family.

I don’t believe you can do anything to help this along. I’ve seen women stuck in these situations unendingly. And even when the man seems to move forward, he is still feeling pressure from the ex and the family. He never escapes the aura of “shame.”

Painful as it is, the best thing here is to simply say you will continue to date him, but not exclusively, and then Circular Date. You can decide if you can handle sex, but I wouldn’t even try it. If you can’t handle this “dating” rotation, then you must break it off until he can figure out what to do…

I’d so appreciate it – and know Alice would too – if any of you are very familiar with cultural differences and difficulties, please give us any information you have – I know it would help many women in these same situations, especially since we have readers here from all over the world….

Love, Rori